


remembering is forgetting

by i_am_not



Series: Hunter's Moon Weekly Prompts (HM 500) [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood Loves Magnus Bane, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Childhood Memories, Domestic Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Gen, Hunter's Moon Discord's HM500 Event, M/M, POV Magnus Bane, ghosts but not corporeal ghosts?, phantom memories?, this is indeed a very liberal interpretation of "ghosts"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25651930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_not/pseuds/i_am_not
Summary: “Is everything okay?” he asks tentatively, never meaning to overstep.“It is now.” Magnus smiles and kisses him.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: Hunter's Moon Weekly Prompts (HM 500) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859773
Comments: 9
Kudos: 29
Collections: Hunter's Moon 500 Prompts





	remembering is forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> Week prompt - GHOST  
> Weekly server event on Hunter's Moon Discord. 500 words or fewer.
> 
> [I am once again apologizing for a not-thought-out-title]  
> [Hunter's Moon Discord Server has the bestest and softest people no, I will not be taking criticism on this]

The angle at which the sunlight illuminates the loft’s living room casts itself in long rectangles which stretch up from the floor to reflect off of the walls. The deep burgundy on the walls appear pink and matches the shade on Magnus’s eyes.

_Memories. They're a strange thing._

Magnus squints at what only a few minutes ago, was a large sheet of flimsy red kite paper. Now neatly folded five through six times to the size of a tallish book. He’d read somewhere that paper could only be folded seven times to a side. Magnus briefly considers testing that theory but lets go of it as soon as he hears his phone chime. He's determined to hand-fold the lanterns before anyone arrives. Magnus checks his phone when it sounds the second time. Already aware who it's from, a smile tugs at his lips as he reads Alec’s text. Like clockwork.

_They linger like half-remembered sensations of kisses ibu left across his face when he couldn’t sleep, the crack in her voice from a vague lullaby. Sometimes in the random prickle at his neck on drunken nights when he almost conjures up her image again._

He had insisted on handmaking the lanterns for their little dinner celebration. Just family. He remembered _ibu_ made the most beautiful _damarkurungs_ . His version looked more like a _tiandeng._ But that hardly mattered. 

_Her golden-brown fingers worked nimbly, folding lanterns out of paper she had painted on as Magnus watched, amazed._ _  
__It was magic._ _  
__She’d push away her long, dark hair impatiently. Her eyes were the kindest eyes of anyone...what colour were they?_

Magnus had lived all his life trying to remember, he grasps at the phantoms his mind produces in the decreasing light. Fragments that are perhaps more fantasy than reality.

_They linger. Like ghosts. Whispers in a burst of wind against the windows or in the gurgling of water draining into the sinkhole. Sometimes in the flash of lightning or the sound of thunder._

From the kitchen, Magnus catches a glimpse of the overcast sky, hanging over the Manhattan landscape like a thick quilt. He wonders how much longer it’ll be until Alec’s home. He returns to stirring his curry, delighting in its fragrance, satisfied with getting it right for Biscuit and Izzy.

_Four hundred years of living a memory over and over again has its cost. At the heart of remembering is always a reminder of its impermanence._

Maryse is always sweet to him. Always spoiling him with the best wines she finds. She busies herself setting the table and Alec finds him hunched over the pot.

Secure in Alec's arms, the world comes back to him, or he comes back to it. Like the rush of sound when one breaks the surface of water to breathe air at long last.

Alec must've noticed because he looks concerned.

“Is everything okay?” he asks tentatively, never meaning to overstep.

“It is now.” Magnus smiles and kisses him.

With Alec, he’s anchored.

He remembers.

**Author's Note:**

> I am, of course, VERY late to this party. But I will try to keep up (more as a personal challenge, if nothing else)  
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> (kudos and reviews are desperately sought after. yes? yes.)
> 
> Find me on Tumblr --> www.incorrect-malec.tumblr.com
> 
> \--------------------------------------------------------------  
> (the bold bits is Magnus. Ofc Magnus is bold ffs)
> 
> deleted stuff:   
> _On my way in an hour. xx._
> 
> _**Maryse?** _
> 
> _With me. Need anything?_
> 
> _**BBQ sauce.** _
> 
> _We’re having a BBQ?_
> 
> _**Just the first thing I thought of.** _
> 
> _The first thing? :(_
> 
> _**You first. Always. xx** _
> 
> _Ly baby <3 will get the BBQ too.bxoxo_


End file.
